* \S 
^C 3 



IS 

3 





What Fight Ye For? 



ADDRESS 

Delivered to the 



12th Company, Mass. Coast Artillery, N. G. 



AT 



St. Marys Cathedral, Fall River, Mass. 



JULY 27th, 1917 
— BY — 



Rt. Rev. James E. Cassidy, V. G. 

On the eve of the Company's departure 
for Fort Banks. Mass. 



In answer to many requests, this address 
is here published in form for distribution 
chiefly among the Soldiers and Sailors of the 
United States Army and Navy. May God 
guard them and through them oar beloved 
country. 



•>E!P ! 



U5*1o 

• 1 5" 

"If you go forth to war out of your land against the enemies that 

^ fiffht against you, you. shall sound aloud with the trumpets, and there 

shall be a. remembrance of you before the Lord, your God, that you 

may be delivered out of the hands of your enemies." Numbers x, .9. 

The words of our Lord spoken to Moses as an everlasting ordinance 
apply with fullest effect to you, members of the 12th company, gath- 
ered here on the eve of your going "forth to war out of your land 
against the enemies that fight against you." 

In the dispensation of divine Providence, the darkest days of 
human history have fallen upon the civilized world. Wars and rumors 
of war; nation rising against nation, kingdom against kingdom and 
the end is not yet. Pride and arrogance and insolence and lust of 
power and domination long hidden in the heart of nations have slipped 
the leash of timely waiting and with arms and armament and ammuni- 
tion, with sword and scimitar and sabre, with deadly fume and poison 
gas, upon the earth and under the water and in the air, white and black 
and yellow and red, Christian and pagan and Moslem vie with one 
another for mastery, in bloody death strife. 

For well nigh three long years, across the wide expanse of ocean, 
with fearful, fearing souls we watched this consuming conflagration 
and prayed that its fires might die away ere the whole world become 
a holocaust. Injury and insult, yea, infamy we suffered, our peace- 
ful souls revolting from this sight of humanity slaughtering itself, 
hoping and trusting and praying that means compatible with honor 
might be found to avoid our adding our portion to the seas of human 
blood that were alike crimsoning a continent and bleeding white a 
world of peoples. 

Our rights were transgressed, our commerce interrupted, our 
properties destroyed, our safety jeopardized, our citizens slain, — and 
yet we kept the peace. We objected, we remonstrated, we protested, 
we threatened, but to no purpose. 

Forced Into War. 

Our patience and long-suffering were misinterpreted. Our horror 
of w r ar and our love of peace were thought to be born of a lack of 
courage to fight. War was being made continually upon us. Blow 
after blow was struck against our sovereign rights until the hour 
arrived, when, all other means exhausted, we must either defend our- 
selves by force, or forever forfeit our right to take our place among 
the nations of the earth. Even then some, whose motives I shall not 
judge, counselled submission and continued toleration of w T rong. 
Thank God their counsels did not prevail. Dark though be the hour 
and sad though be our hearts as we face the bloody future how infinitely 
darker would be the days and how filled w r ith shame and ignominy the 
future if we had been led by those who would have had peace at any 
price? The words of our Lord in the Gospel: "What shall a man be 
profited, if he shall gain the whole world and lose his own soul?" 
(Matt, xvi, 26), I cannot refrain from applying to our nation's situa- 
tion last April. For if our President and our Congress had not then 
acted as they did, w r e should have been a soulless nation and shame 
and reproach and everlasting infamy would have been the profit of our 
peace. But the nation did not sell its soul for peace. We loved not 



war but we loved dishonor less, and when compelled to choose we un- 
hesitatingly, though regretfully, chose war. And in the chosen words 
of Holy Writ : ' ' You go forth to war out of your land against the 
enemies that fight against you." 

Clad in your nation's uniform, before the altar of the Eucharistic 
Christ, answering the trumpet's sound, on the eve of going forth to 
war, you kneel for God and country. 

"Render to Cassar the things that are Caesar's !" And you are here, 
members of the 12th Company, Mass. Coast Artillery, to lay upon the 
altar of your God all that you have, even to life itself, for your coun- 
try's love and honor. 

A Fight for Freedom. 

When men ask you: "What fight ye for?" tell them, in tones 
that shall wake up the dead of '76 : "I fight for liberty, for freedom 's 
sake, for righteousness, for all my country's flag has ever represented. 
I fight for peace, that justice may prevail, that frightfulness and in- 
humanity may not possess the earth. Out of the mart and mill and 
meadow I have come, no warrior by profession but peace-loving and 
peace-keeping citizen, roused by my country's call, to serve her with 
my all ; to struggle, to suffer, to die if need be that her cause may live, 
that might shall not prevail, that right shall not forever perish from 
the earth." And if anyone shall dare to ask you why you sacrifice 
for country's sake tell them in voice that shall admit no question: "I 
give to her, my country, because she hath given all to me. After God 
she has given me life; after God she has protected me; her children 
that have come and gone before me have withstood the summer's heat 
and the winter's cold, have struggled and suffered and bled and died 
that I might be a freeman. My forefathers she received with open 
arms ; tenderly she nursed them ; liberty, justice and equality she gave 
them; the shield of her protection she set up before them; with her 
life's blood did she guard them; the right to worship God untrammeled 
and unrestrained she ensured to them ; she gave them place, distinction, 
honor, all, reserving nothing, and now, when she's in need and calls to 
me, with all I have quickly answer, 'Here, sir.' " That's a soldier's 
answer to a slacker's "Why?" 

Popularity No Measure of Righteousness. 

And here, if you will allow me time, I would give answer to those 
who would seemingly discredit your sacrifice by telling you that this 
is an unpopular war. 

What war was ever popular in the sense that they would have it ? 
Was the war for independence popular ? Was the war for the preserva- 
tion of the Union popular ? Was the Spanish war popular ? Popularity 
is no measure of righteousness. Fighting with and killing each other 
is popular only with savages, and brave men do not anticipate with joy 
the slaughtering of their brethren. Someone has truly said that war is 
hell and hell is hardly popular with anyone. We abhor war but we 
thank God that we have not yet arrived at that decadent and degener- 
ate condition wherein we would suffer anything rather than fight. 
God forbid that we should ever consider peace more honorable or more 
desirable than righteousness! God forbid that we should purchase 
peace with dishonor. God make us ever abhor war but God keep us 
from ever becoming too cowardly to fight. 



Time for Individual Judgment Passed. 

Again some would lessen your merits by maintaining that we 
should have never gone into this war. To these I have already given 
answer but to those now I say in shorter words, "The time for discus- 
sion as to the propriety of our entering the war has passed. This is a 
representative government. We delegate others to represent us. We 
elect a President to lead us. Our President and our Congress, with 
much wider knowledge of events, and with as great abhorrence of war 
as we have, have decided that a state of war exists. Who are we that 
we should pit our individual judgment against the decision of those 
whom we have legally and voluntarily constituted our representatives? 
Democracy demands delegation of power and should we refuse to abide 
by the decision of those whom we have delegated to speak for us what 
confusion would come upon us ! If Russia today is wrecked in ruins 
it is because this very exercise of individual judgment has made chaos 
of organized government and if we were to pay attention to every 
individual judgment we, too, would shortly become another Russia. 
Therefore I say the time for individual judgment has passed. Whatso- 
ever previous opinions we may have entertained they should now be laid 
aside and we should all follow the flag in unquestioned and in unques- 
tioning loyalty. You see I dare to speak of matters rarely publicly dis- 
cussed nor have I yet said all. 

Our War, Not England's. 

There is something else which should be said and I trust I am not 
amiss when I say it. There are too many of varied ancestry, too many 
of ancestry, if you will, like to mine, Irish- Americans, whose judgment 
is blinded by their hatred toward England. Let them beware lest their 
animosity toward England be interpreted as disloyalty to the United 
States. 

Out of the loins of a Fenian, arrested in arms against the English, 
I came. I was nursed at the breast of as true an Irishwoman as ever 
came out of Ireland. Indelibly written in my soul is the story of Eng- 
land's rule of blood and iron in Ireland. But what has that to do with 
the honor of my own country? Incidentally and accidentally we may 
be fighting for England just as England now is fighting for us, but es- 
sentially and fundamentally we are not fighting for England, we are 
fighting for ourselves. Had Germany by its own overt acts, repeated 
again and again, not made it impossible for us to keep peace with honor, 
had she respected our rights, had she not murdered our citizens, she 
might have beaten England to her knees and we would not have inter- 
fered. We did not go to war to save England, — we went to war to save 
ourselves, to save our sovereign rights, to save all and everything that 
a nation in honor prizes. You men of all births, for there are men of 
many bloods and births bearing a grievance against England, in your 
blind desire for retribution, you forget that in this war all must stand 
or fall together. If England stands we stand ; if England falls we fall ; 
victory and honor or defeat and dishonor shall come upon all alike. And 
God forbid that there should be any so base and low and blinded as to 
strike at the heart of England through the soul of their own country ! 
God forbid that there should be any who would rejoice at the losses of 
any of the Allies when they know that such losses mean only greater 
losses and multiplied deaths among you soldier sons. Let this insanity 
pass forever from these states. 



Faithful to Christ and Country. 

But let these matters not disturb your spirit or swerve you 
from your lofty purpose. You have buckled on the armor of 
righteousness, you have raised aloft the banner of the Stars 
and Stripes, you have vowed to do and die for the liberty, the justice, 
the freedom for which we have ever stood, and I know that you will all 
be faithful unto death. I know that you will render to Cassar the things 
that are Caesar's, but will you render to God the things that are God's? 
That is the question that is in my heart tonight. 

"What shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world and 
lose his own soul?" And many there are today who are going out to 
save their country and to lose their own souls ! Many there are who will 
be true indeed to their country but will be false to God ! Many there are 
who will honor the Stars and Stripes with their life-blood but who will 
make a mockery of Jesus Christ ! Many there are who will be faithful to the 
flag but who will be traitors to the cross and I would alike be a coward 
and a traitor to Christ did I fail to stamp this truth upon your soldier 
hearts. 

For every tie that binds you to your country, there are a thousand 
ties that bind you to Christ. For every obligation you have to be 
faithful to the flag you have a thousand demanding your fidelity to the 
cross. For every temporal tie that binds you to the commander-in-chief 
of the army and navy of these United States you have a thousand eternal 
ties binding you to the Supreme Ruler of the Universe, the Lord of 
Hosts and God of Battles. I have said that many will be true to the flag 
and false to the cross. I'll correct that statement and I'll say that those 
who are false to the cross are false alike to the flag ; that those who are false 
to God will be false alike to country. You are going out into what has 
been weakly described as an orgy of blood. You are going out, also, into 
an orgy of lust. Many of you are innocent and unsophisticated boys, 
delicately reared and sacredly preserved. In the midst of blood you will 
not falter but in the midst of lust we pray you may not fall ! If you 
fall in one you are false in the other. Major General Leonard Wood, 
commander of the southeastern department, in a statement last Wednes- 
day speaks with authority: "Moral and physical contamination is one 
of the greatest menaces to military efficiency." And the soldier or the 
sailor that goes out and wallows in impurity, the soldier or the sailor 
that goes out and contaminates his moral and physical being by sinning 
with fallen women, that man is not only false to God who has said "Thou 
shalt not ' ' but he is false to his country who says to him : ' ' Give me 
the best that thou hast. ' ' Two hundred thousand soldiers of one nation, I 
shall not name it, two hundred thousand soldiers of one nation invalided 
and made not only useless but a burden to their country in its sorest need 
with impure disease! Were these men patriots or were they lustiots? 
Not in France, not in England, not in Germany, not in Turkey, but in 
these United States, in this commonwealth of Massachusetts, whole lines 
of men waiting, not to confess to the priest in confession, but waiting to 
report to the camp doctor that they had been outside and sinned with 
women, that they might receive preventive treatment ! They owed their 
Maker personal purity and they owed their country military efficiency 
and they sold both for a bawd and strumpet ! I know I shall be criticized 
for speaking of these matters here but unless someone speaks the very 
stones of the streets will cry out ! And the sad part of it is that when 



the national government, in a spirit only of self-defense endeavors to 
stamp out this evil, it gets little or no co-operation from the local au- 
thorities. Says Major General Wood: "When the local authorities are 
unable or unwilling to take the necessary measures to eradicate this evil 
they should at least restrict it to the smallest possible area." God guard 
you, soldier boys, from dangers infinitely worse than physical death. 
Your mothers and your sisters and your wives gladly give you up to die 
if need be for our country's honor but how shall their sacrifices be shamed 
if they learn that moral death has overtaken you? 

Two Ideals — Divine and Human. 

One Avord more and I have done. As you leave this holy place, 
ne'er, perchance to e'er return, two visions, two memories, 1' would 
stamp indelibly on your soldier-souls. The first is Christ upon the 
cross, his arms outstretched toward you in infinite love, bruised, bleed- 
ing, crucified, triumphing over sin and death to make you free. He is 
your God. Be you faithful to him unto death. The other is that most 
heroic figure of all these terrible times, Cardinal Mercier — wan of 
countenance and worn of body, yet with spirit unbroken and un- 
dimmed, he stands amidst the ruins of his devastated and desolated 
country, his sons murdered, his daughters violated, his children carried 
into captivity, his homes laid waste, every lash that falls upon his 
conquered people cutting thrice deep into his very soul. Yet un- 
daunted, unterrified, unconquered, he faces his oppressors and says to 
them: "Draw your plans, set up your batteries, arrange your move- 
ments, propose as you will but God will ultimately dispose. My con- 
viction, both natural and supernatural, of our ultimate victory is more 
firmly rooted in my soul than ever. We plighted our word that we 
should be neutral and to maintain our word of honor we have sacrificed 
our goods, our homes, our sons, our husbands, and after three years 
of coercion we are still as proud of our fidelity as when Ave first de- 
clared: 'Thou shalt not pass.' " 

And this heroic figure, the very personification of patriotism and 
love of country, I hold out to you as your model and your ideal. No 
enemy boast, no enemy bribe, no enemy threat, no enemy pressure, 
no suffering, no Avant, no pain, no loss, no fear has shaken him from 
his high resolve to render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's and 
unto God the things that are God's. Far aAvay across the Avide Atlantic 
he stretches out his arms to you for help against the common enemy. 
In the name of Jesus Christ go forth to do and die. God giA^e you 
loyalty, God give you fortitude, God give you unflinching and unfail- 
ing courage to fight our country's cause. And God give you grace, 
God give you Adrtue, God giA r e you self-sacrifice and self-restraint to 
fight gloriously alike for Him. The prayers of your loved ones folloAv 
you; the blessing of your church accompanies you; the gratitude, 
sympathy, support and sacrifice of a united people sustain you. Let 
the motto of those Avho go and those who stay forever be: "Let us 
all hold together in God." 



"E PLURIBUS UNUJVT 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



Y 



018 465 805 7 




12th Company, Mass. Coast Artillery, N. G. 



Hollinger Corp. 
P H8.5 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 

Illllllillllll 

018 465 805 7 fe 



Hollinger Corp. 
pH8.5 



